"What just happened?" Soleil had both of her cousins on their feet as she rushed towards the three that remained: Braedyn, Erzia, and Phoena.
Brady shook his head, gaze snapping back towards the opening in the tree's that the brothers had darted through. "Doesn't matter right now." He wouldn't tell. It wasn't his place. "What matters now is that we go after them. Who knows what might be lurking out there... it isn't safe." Not that Brady didn't think that Sachi could handle anything that came at them in the boy's Manabe form, but the seeds of doubt that had started sprouting around whether Callan might actually be his brother long since thought dead were only going to grow like an untamed weed the more the boy tried to run from them and from the shifter in hot pursuit. Such a distraction would prove it difficult to defend against any sort of attack.
It took no more than that simple mention of their deficient safety to convince Phoena, who clambered up and darted towards the forest. Sol's eyes widened, blinking between the shrinking figure of the blonde and the two other Runeholders at her side. "Let's go." Sol grabbed Brady's arm, Reighn and Rina in tow as well. "We can't lose her too!"
Brady agreed quickly, shooting a quick glance over his shoulder at Erzia as they started their sprint.
"Oh, fine," the other telepath huffed, "I'm coming."
And so the five of them went, seeking their comrades wherever the trees might hide them.
"Do you think you can pick up on her thoughts?" She barely seemed to be breaking a sweat as they ran, which irked Brady to no end as he panted and side-eyed her.
"Why not you?" he asked.
He'd expected her to look annoyed at his insolence, but rather, there seemed to be an air of inward bitterness shrouding her. "I can only hear the thoughts of a single person if I focus on them. I need to be able to see them." Did it upset her that he could do something she couldn't? Skill was a prideful rune, if any ever was, so he couldn't say it shocked him, but Erzia didn't seem the type willing to admit even an ounce of inferiority. "You can open your mind to all the thoughts around you, right?" Brady nodded. "Then you shouldn't have any problem weeding out hers or Callan's. Or even Sachi's. Maybe they'll give us a clue?"
He hated to admit that too, but it was a decent plan. He let his mind wander, seeing what it might pick up on first. It wasn't like there would be much filtering in out in the depths of the forest like they were. A matter of honing in on the right chord was what it was.
Sol and her cousin's were the easiest, the first thoughts that sprung to mind. Reighn was bemoaning the extra weight-- he'd picked up Ismerina not long after they'd taken off to search for the others--he carried. Soliel, meanwhile, wore a delicate frown as she regarded her cousins, Rina's chin resting on Reighn's shoulder as he carried her piggyback. She wondered if she should cut in and take Rina for a while. She wanted to help Reighn but didn't want poor Ismerina to feel like a burden to the both of them either. But she did, Rina was sulking about not carrying her own weight, chastising herself for being useless and weak.
Brady tore his eyes away from them, hoping that would help snap his mind into focus. He still only found silence where Erzia's thoughts should have been, and while he bristled at that, it couldn't be helped. The next mind he slipped into was comfortably familiar compared to the others, as if his intrusion there was almost too practiced. He was right at home, and Phoena was desperately seeking Callentine. The telepath hadn't expected her to be fretting over how Sachi was, but the boy was important to Callan, and she wanted to find them both. How far could they have gotten when she'd gone after them only moments after?
It was hard to tell, and the harder she tried to find her way, the more lost it seemed that Phoe became.
"She's lost them," Brady huffed breathlessly, taking a moment to lean forward and brace his hands on his knees as he panted. "I don't know if I'm in any state to keep doing this..." he panted as the other slowed alongside him.
"I might be able to try something," Sol offered, her forehead creasing as she mulled over the possibility. "I don't know that it'd work, but--"
Erzia scratched her cheek, tipping her head to the side. "Anything's worth a shot at this point, I think."
Soliel pressed her lips together, wandering out in front of the others. Holding her hands out before her-- an inviting gesture with her palms raised to the sky-- she took in a deep breath, holing it and letting rest in her middle. As she closed her eyes, she exhaled until it left her lungs entirely, her chest seeming to cave in on itself. She was a sorceress, practiced in the art of earth magic. Perhaps, she could commune with her element to aid in finding her runaway friends. At the very least, as Erzia had said, there wasn't any harm in Soliel trying. Slowly, she flipped her hands over so that her palms faced the dirt. She needed to drown it all out, all but the sounds of nature. The natural world had a voice too, if only you were willing to listen. The roots of the trees stretched vastly beyond most people's wildest imaginations, this intricate system of knowledge woven beneath the surface. Nature touched everything, in one way or another. It knew everything.
So, it knew-- as it must-- where Callan and Sachi must've gone. Sol need only allow the earth to impart that vital information upon her.
The sorceress crouched down, placing a hand on either side of herself. Palms firmly pressed against the ground, she willed her magic to her fingertips-- a warm flow of energy from her core. It was like liquid moonlight that basked her hands, as if someone had melted all the stars in the sky down into a dazzling elixir of raw energy. And so it seemed to seep into the soil like a lustrous rainwater from Soliel's fingers, seeking the answers that the young woman so desired. She could feel her magic spread throughout the area, her eyes shooting open again only once it had gathered all in one place. Her finger jutted forward, Sol pointing in the direction that she sense her own power. "That way," she insisted. "The earth remembered their path. I can sense the magic where they are now."
Her power was a part of her, after all, which meant that she was following her own trail, beckoned by her magic craving to be one with her again in its rightful place. With Soleil acting as guide, they marched onwards. They would find Phoena on the way, and then they would reunite with Callan and Sachi.
###
"Sachi! Just stop and talk to me for a minute... I'm begging you." If it hadn't been for the tangled root that the boy become wrapped up with, Callan wasn't sure he would have conceded to his plea at all. The world was lending Cal a root to halt his little brother in his tracks. Sachi fell to the ground with a yelp, and the shifter was upon him, reaching out for him, but the young boy made no move to accept. Instead, he remained on all fours, heaving like he might be ill at any moment. "Are you okay?" It was a question that Callan had to ask, even if he knew the answer. It was one he didn't want to hear either, but he understood.
"I'm scared."
"I'm sorry." Callan's fist clenched as he hung his head. "I didn't know either... I wish I had. I wish I--" This was precisely what he had to make up for. The pain he was causing Sachi-- then and now-- wasn't fair. Hadn't he suffered enough? How could Callan possibly hope to explain this to the boy in such a way that wouldn't leave him scarred beyond repair? Being a Manabe was hard enough without his dead brother-- one the kid thought he'd brought the demise of through that same beastly nature-- stumbling back into his life. How did he tell Sachi that he'd been made to forget his own little brother because his role as a Runeholder was too important to allow his love for Sachi to be a danger to himself? That wasn't fair... not to him and not to Sachi. It was cruel beyond belief what the Grand Commander had done to Callan-- no, Orin-- and his brother for the sake of their nation.
It made him wonder: if maintaining Gwyrholm's regime was the objective, what was too high a price to pay in order to meet that end?
"Is this why you feel so bad? Because you're..." Sachi trailed off, unable to let the name slip off his lips. He finally looked up and righted himself, sniffling miserably as his eyes met the shifter's. "Callan, I killed him. I did."
Cal just shook his head roughly, fighting back the urge to cry himself. It hurt, knowing he hadn't been there for Sachi when his brother needed him the most... and even worse, when Orin himself was such a cause of grief for a kid who shouldn't have had a care in the world. He had to grow up too fast-- on his own-- and Callan blame himself for that.
He blamed Callentaine je Dellal.
He blamed the Rune system that made children into figureheads of moral prestige, of willpower and strength. Made them near gods in the eyes of the Gwyr.
That was too much responsibility for any child to bear, yet those were their rules... their beliefs.
The hypocrisy. To ask them to be brave, humble, selfless, and fair. To perseverance against all odds, to possess skill unmatched by any other... They were cowards-- his father more than any. They knew no modesty, more than happy to gloat about their fierce armies and their powerful empire. They knew only their own selfish desires and cared not who and what they had to destroy in order for those to come to fruition. Orin and Sachi's familial bond was a prime example of something precious that the Grand Commander had been all too willing to toss away like garbage to meet his own needs. Was that fair? Any of it? ...no. And did he care? Would he ever? ...not one bit.
Could a man like that truly understand perseverance, having never understood a true struggle a day in his life. Skill, je Dellal had, but what did that matter when exercising his power hurt the innocent?
"It's not always your fault..." Callan repeated those same words from earlier. "I wish I could've told you I was okay then. All I wanted was for you to be safe." Hadn't done a very good job of that either, some big brother he was shaping up to be. "I was drifting in and out of consciousness then, and my pulse was so weak that it was almost like I wasn't breathing at all." His cold, lifeless figure that Sachi had held in his arms, thinking those were Orin's last moments. He swallowed roughly, locking his gaze on their hands. His own were still wrapped tightly around Sachi's smaller ones, and he gave them a squeeze. "I didn't blame you for leaving either. If anything, I was happy you did. I didn't want your last memories of me to be like that, and if it had been hunters from Mystaire, I would've wanted you to run. As fast as you could." It hadn't, but that didn't change how Callan had felt then. "I was half-dead when the Grand Commander and his advisors found me. He forced one of the sorceresses in his party use blood magic to save me since I was a Runeholder. He-- he used a telepath to rewrite my memories of our childhood so I wouldn't try to find you." He let out a chagrined laugh. "I was too valuable a commodity to let go to waste, I guess... You didn't kill me, Sachi. I was stolen from you when you needed me most, and I don't know how I'll ever be able to make it up to you. All that time we lost--"
"--is just time."
Callan startled at that, blinking down at the boy. "What?"
Sachi chewed on his lip, wriggling his hands out of Callan's to scrub at the fresh tears that dampened his cheeks. "I don't know how-- how you could know all that if you were making this up." He pressed his hands square against his cheeks, the faint pressure seeming of a calming sort. The child dragged them down after a moment, cupping them together under his chin and using his knuckles as a bridge to support. "I want to believe you. You look so much like him." A weary smile crossed his thin face. "If you really are Orin, it's not your fault either. You didn't chose that... you weren't given a choice at all." He paused there, averting his eyes to the ground as he nudged a rock with his toe. Quieter then, he went on: "And if did, I hope you would've chosen me."
"I would have. Not a question." Both his expression and his tone told of that he hadn't a single doubt. He always would have chose his little brother. It wouldn't have matter to Orin if the entire world had stood between the two of them; he still would have chosen Sachi.
"Thank you for still being here," Sachi was starting to blubber again, his bottom lip quivering as he threw himself into Cal's arms. It was like every bottled up emotion from his brother's death was pouring out then and there onto Callan's shoulder. Orin... his Orin, who he thought he'd lost forever, finally returned to him. Not brought back from the dead but alive all this time, and they were together again. "Thank you for not dying. Thank you for coming back. Thank you..."
"I still want to make it up to you."
Sachi nuzzled his face into the crook of Callan's neck, tickling the shifter as he shook his head. He was sniffling a bit but sounded wholeheartedly genuine, as if not a thing in the world that Cal-- or anyone else for that matter-- could say would persuade him otherwise. "You already have. Just being here is enough."
That serene moment shared between the two brothers-- heartfelt and tender, with their feelings bared... their regrets, their hopes-- was enough. For years they'd been kept apart, deceived by what they thought they knew, but no more. The truth had been laid bare, and as long as time would allow, the pair would cling to this bittersweet embrace, as if it might go unchanged if they stayed still enough. If they didn't dare breathe too loudly or move more than an inch, they could stay there in that blissful, delicate moment together until reality finally dragged them away.
Unfortunately for the two brothers, reality was in hasty pursuit. They had a mission, one on which the fate of the empire rested. It cared not for heartrending reunions or impassioned promises shared. When-- if-- the world came crumbling down, what would any of it matter? They had a duty to fulfil, and the cost of neglecting it was much too high.